Rainy Days

Weren't you bummed about those days?

Face it. We've all experienced those days when there was a massive downpour and you were dying to ride your new bike or chill in your backyard clubhouse or do some other form of outside activity. Of course, we had to find some workaround to keep us busy during the downpour. So, here was a few of the things we did that actually made us look forward to rainy days.

Gameboy 'competitions

Basically, my sister, 2 cousins and I would pick 3 games out of our collection (they could not be the same as what another had...so If I had tetris chosen, no one else could use their copy of tetris) and write up a score sheet. Each game consisted of a 10-minute session to see A: how far we got, B: Score and C: how many remaning lives we had, when applicable. We'd all pile up onto the bed angling our GB's just right to get decent light and away we went.

Next up on the list was...

Mini sized Waffle Blocks!

I'm not sure what the official name was for these toys, but...These toys were the pwnage! I did have larger scale waffle blocks that were about the size of a floor tile but these were considered "outdoor toys" and were meant to live the life outside baking and fading in the sun and eventually cracking from drying out. Using the mini sized blocks, we'd build different structures to use our action figures on for whatever battle scenes we wanted to pull off, hoping it would be like what we saw on commercials...not even close but we were satisfied having Batman and some random Jurassic park character duking it out.

We also built towers that stood about 3 feet. We'd fill 'em up with blankets or something soft and I had my cousin sit on the top. It held. Slowly, I'd pull pieces out hoping it not (well really hoping it would) crash, which was quite successful and enjoyable.

pwn3d!

Once we got bored of that destruction, we moved onto another form of destruction...

Lego Destruction Derby!

Of course, I always got slaughtered at this. My cousin (same one who rode the waffle block drop tower ride) and I would take 5 minutes to create some form of lego vehicle of a certain size and must have wheels. Once our contraption was completed, we took it to the tile floor straightaway, one on each end of the room aligning our cars. Once ready, we'd send them rolling off and into each other. Obviously, the one that flew apart and had legos everywhere.

what happened to mah car?!?

The trick was to make your vehicle as 'blocky' as possible not to mention, do not make it hollow. I think I may have only won once of the many derbies we did.

Lastly, the ultimate cure for the dreaded rainy days were something every kid has done...

Bed Fortress!

Ok, maybe it was not really that exciting, but it did beat that cardboard fort we had out in the yard that was probably soggy by then...We had a bunk bed in my room, and we pretty much draped blankets around to hide the bottom bunk. Inside this makeshift clubhouse is where gameboy contests were held, as well as drawing, kicking back, or even falling asleep to pass time. (sorry, could not find any pictures that best represents the 'tent' we would make.)

So, that pretty much kept us busy until it was time to go to bed. At that point, we enjoyed the sound of the rain as it helped us go to sleep. We looked forward to the next rainy day to pull off another gameboy competition or lego destruction derby session. Thanks for reading.

And by the way, I would probably go back and do the gameboy competitions (old games) just to relive that childhood experience, if I had the time...but full time college and work do not allow for that.

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i loved the rain as a kid. racing leaf boats in the gutter. splashing aroun in my golashes in the gutters. the smell. there was a certain feeling i had/have about rain that i could never put into words.

I loved rainy days. Especially on Saturdays when I could open the windows wide and sleep in. I could stay in bed all day and that was the perfect time to snuggle up with the radio playing and read Choose Your Own Adventure books until I was blue in the face.

God I miss the simplicity of those times - when my only responsibilities in life were to have fun and to explore and learn about life through experience. Things got a little more dicey after that, and like that song, sometimes I feel like I'd trade a hundred tomorrows for a single yesterday...sniffle

This was a cool article. Yea, I hated rainy days as a kid, as well. I was an only child and didn't have a large family...all my 2nd and 3rd cousins lived out of town. Therefore, if I couldn't get in touch with any friends or if they couldn't come over (due to grounding or whatever), I had to occupy myself. 9 times out of 10, it was Nintendo that would pass my time. However, I loved doing the bed fort; I would actually make it like a tent by propping up the sheets and blankets with stuff that I could find that would stand up straight and be sturdy on the mattress. I would also draw, play with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures (the original ones from the early 90's), watch TV, listen to music, play my guitar, or take a nap if the rainy weather triggered one of those painful sinus headaches.

I really enjoyed reading about what you would do during your childhood rainy days. You have a great way or writing. Keep it up, dude!

I never had a GameBoy but I still do have my original NES and I love playing those old games and reliving my childhood.

I remember on rainy days walking home from school. Me and my friend would each find a nice little stick and put them in the water where the rain would be coming down the curb and have races all the way home. Sometimes the rain was not high enough or they would get stuck so we would pick them up and start again. It would sometimes take us a hour even though we only both lived 10 min. away. I remember making bed forts. I also made forts out of the living room furnurter on saturday morning before my parents got up, I would sit there in one chair with no bottom and have two choshins on the side and one on top sitting there watching saturday cartoons or WWF wrestling.

Rainy days never really bothered me as a kid, I got used to them. I liked the look at them, as long as I wore the proper stuff or had an umbrella I could still go outside unless it was really seriously heavily rain out. I'd play with my Lego and toy car stuff, get into a coloring book, read, watch tv or put on some music. I got into this thing where I thought some music sounded best on rainy days, like a sight/ sound thing. That's stayed with me. Yes' Going for the One album has always been one of my go to albums for rainy days, it always takes me back to listening to a song off that album, Wonderous Stories the way I first heard it as a kid on a best of Yes tape I played alot on rainy days.

I think the mini waffle blocks were called "Wee Waffle Blocks" or something like that, they were maybe about 5"x5" squares. And yes, I had Zaks too, the lego-sized waffle blocks. I honestly don't even know what happened to my wafle blocks as they were in this huge rubbermaid container one day and next day they were gone. Never recalled donating them.

If you were like me, the WORST part about rain was that you weren't allowed to go swimming!?! I'm already wet, why the **** not? Because somebody has to watch you swim so you don't drown, and they don't like sitting in the rain while you splash in the pool/lake.

Waffle blocks were awesome. My set came with road pieces (you would use the waffles to give support to the high-rise highways). Did you ever build a Tie-Fighter out of them? You had to make a cube with one of the "window" pieces in front, two "waffle" pieces on the sides, two "waffle" pieces as the outer wings, and you could use any piece for the top, bottom, back, and wing supports.

To be honest rainy days never bummed me out at all. With my armies of GI Joes and Transformers along with the Atari 2600 and later Colecovision and later NES to keep me occupied there was always plenty to do inside. Plus the rain didn't always keep me inside, sometimes I liked to run around in the rain.